"Here's your assignment papers," Jennison said, handing them over. "You're hired by the Yow Dee Mine, Templar Mining Company. You ought to be there in two hours by tube. I gave you a good assignment."
Hal did not answer immediately. He had not liked Jennison on first encounter. He liked him no more now; and he was certain that the apparent generosity and friendliness must tie in with some advantage Jennison was hoping to gain from him. The thing would be to try and find out what that advantage was. "Such situations," Walter had told him once, "always develop into bargaining sessions. And the first secret of successful bargaining is to make the other party do the proposing."
"You charged me for a meal, last night," Hal said, picking up the assignment papers.
"That's right, I did," said Jennison. He leaned on the counter and continued to smile. "Officially, of course, I shouldn't have done it. If I'd known more about you, I wouldn't have. But in a job like this, you take what you can. I wouldn't do it again; but now the credit's entered with central bookkeeping, it'd be a little awkward to fix it without upsetting the accountants at headquarters. And I get along by getting along with people. Now, I did you a big favor with the mine I assigned you to - ask your friend Sost about that if you don't believe me. Why don't you do me the small favor of forgetting that small charge to your credit? Maybe someday we can do a little business, and I can knock the amount of it off a price."
"And maybe we won't do any business," said Hal.
Jennison laughed.
"On Coby everybody does business with everybody. As I say, ask your friend Sost."
"Maybe I'm different," said Hal.
He had chosen the words at random; but his senses, stretched to their greatest alertness, suddenly convinced him that he had triggered a reaction from Jennison with that last answer. Of course, Jennison could be interpreting what he had just said as a threat… Hal suddenly remembered that he had come here to Coby to hide, and he was abruptly conscious of the danger of insisting too much on any difference he might have. He spoke again quickly.
"Anyway, I don't expect to come through here again."
"There's always a chance," said Jennison. "I don't know myself what might bring us to talking again; but I always like to part friends with everybody. All right?"
"I don't make friends that easily."
Jennison showed a trace of impatience.
"I'm just pointing out I may be able to do you some good, someday!" he said. "You'll maybe find out you want to do business with me, after all. It'll work a lot better then if we're already - all right, not friends, then - but at least friendly."
Hal watched the man closely. Jennison was sounding sincere. Hal could check with Sost, but he was beginning to be strongly convinced that the agent must have some specific stock-in-trade which the events here had convinced him he might be able to sell to Hal, someday; and he was trying to pave the way for that sale, in advance.
Hal put the assignment papers safely in an inside jacket pocket.
"What happened to that man who jumped me last night?" he asked.
"Who?" Jennison raised an eyebrow, turned about and ran his eye down a list of what seemed to be names on a printout on his desk. "… Khef? Oh, yes, Khef. He's all right. In the infirmary. Slight concussion; probably be back here in a day or two - though they say they may want to hold him for some psychiatrics."
Hal turned and went out the door. He had to struggle against a lifetime of training to keep from saying goodbye; but he managed it.
Outside, the space between the canteen and the office was now empty. Things seemed to be going full blast once more in the canteen. He walked over and got in the truck with Sost.
"What does 'psychiatrics' mean here?" he asked.
"Head-tests. For crazies." Sost looked at him. "What's your assignment?"
"Yow Dee Mine," said Hal. "Jennison seemed to think he'd done me a particular favor."
Sost whistled briefly.
"Could be," he said. "It's a good mine. Honest management. Good team leaders - or used to be good team leaders, last I heard, anyway."
Sost raised the truck from the ground on its air jets and turned it back toward Halla Station.
"What are team leaders?" Hal asked.
"Six to ten men to a team. One man leads them. You'll be taking the tube. I'll run you over to it."
"You mean, working down in the mine, they work in teams?"
Sost nodded.
"What's the procedure when I get there? Are they going to stick me on a team - do I go right down the mine and to work? Or is there some sort of training I'll have to get first?"
"Your team leader'll train you - all the training you'll get," said Sost. "But they don't just stick you on. Like I say, the team captain can turn you down if he wants to. They don't do it too much, though. A team captain that hard to please wears out the patience of management, pretty fast. Probably they'll send you down on your first shift the day after you get there, but if they want to, they can tell you to suit up, hand you a torch and walk you right out of the hiring yard into the skip."
"Skip? That's what you called the others back at the Holding Area, wasn't it?"
"No - kip. A kip - that's what you're going to be - is the last man joined onto the team. He's got to run all the errands for the rest of them. A skip - that's the car you go down into the mine in. Like an elevator."
"Oh," said Hal. He continued to ask questions, however, until Sost dropped him off at the tube platform.
"Just do what it says on your travel orders," said Sost, finally. "I got to get to work. So long."
He turned the truck abruptly on its own long axis and began to drive off.
"Wait!" Hal called after him. "When am I going to run into you again? How do I find you?"
"Just ask anybody!" Sost called back without turning his head. He lifted one hand briefly in farewell and drove around a corner out of sight of the platform and the tube tunnel.
It was some twenty minutes later that the train Hal was waiting for came through and he got on board. The mine that he had been assigned to was south of Halla Station but back towards the port city, almost half the distance Hal had originally come out. The tube car he was riding was almost empty of other passengers, and none of these showed any eagerness to socialize, which relieved him of the need to discourage conversation. He was free to sit by himself and think; and he did.
He was feeling curiously empty and lonely. Once again, he had met someone he liked, only to leave him behind. Except that, in the case of Sost, he still had the other's advice for a companion. Though it was not easy advice to follow. Hal would not have thought of himself as someone who jumped around physically and talked too much. His own self-image was of someone almost too quiet and almost too silent. But if he had struck Sost as being overactive and talkative, he must be doing more moving about and talking than he should, or else the older man would not have chosen those characteristics to pick on.
But advice alone was a cold companion. He thought now that he seemed fated to end up alone in the universe. Maybe it was necessary for things to happen that way to him now that his life had turned out the way it had. Certainly, if he was going to become invisible to the Others who might be looking for him, he probably could not afford the risk of having friends. He had been brought up, particularly by Walter the InTeacher, to reach out automatically and make connection with all other human beings around him. But now he would have to practice, not merely at not making friends, but rebuffing anyone who might try to make a friend of him.